No Limit

The stars outside the huge transport vessel seemed to speed past as Kyvon pressed his hands against the large observation glass. Uncertainty seemed to hum with a pulse of its own as he was traveled through darkness. He sighed as he tried to fathom the reason that he was brought so far out into space. Could it be? Could someone know his special talent? "Impossible!" He thought. "Who could they be? I haven't had visions since I was twelve. Even then, I wasn't sure how they happened." His mind reeled at the possibilities. After what felt like hours, Kyvon felt the slight jolt that told him that the shuttle had reached its destination.

"Mr. Jackson!" Commander Shiarr said as he entered the craft.

Kyvon snapped to attention.

The commander's mood was difficult to read as he slowly took stock of Kyvon. Having come from a civilian background, Kyvon looked surprisingly, very much like a soldier in his uniform. It had been given to him when he boarded the transport shuttle back on his home planet of Azara Prime.

"It is time." Shiarr continued. "Please follow me to the bridge."

"Sir, yes sir." Kyvon answered attempting his best impression of a proper military salute. In one motion, it seemed, he gathered his jacket, notepad and his military identification card, and he followed the commander through the labyrinth of passageways that would eventually lead to the bridge. On the way, he spied eight large crates in the ship's cargo bay. He took off his glasses and peered directly at the crate nearest him and concentrated. In his mind's eye he received an image of a black spacecraft. It seemed to be identical in size to the five passenger transport vehicles he piloted on Azara Prime. But all the ones on his planet had wings of some configuration. These had none. He reasoned that wings must not be very useful for maneuvering in outer space.

"Hmmm, intriguing." he said as he arched his right eyebrow curiously. "I wonder who's going to fly those." He said, expecting a response from the commander. There was none.

He shrugged this aside as his tour terminated at a large door, guarded by two soldiers. Both snapped to attention as the commander and Kyvon approached. Shiarr raised his hand and dipped his I.D. card into the reader to the right of the door. Three beeps later, the door rose on it's sliding tracks to the top of the arch. Kyvon entered, still apprehensively following the commander.

The bridge of the Scarab was not particularly large with respect to the proportions of the rest of the ship, but it's spherical shape allowed for an almost unobstructed view of the ship's top, bottom and sides.

"Welcome aboard, Mr. Jackson." Came a raspy female voice from behind a chair in the center of the sphere. "I am pleased to finally make your acquaintance." Slowly the chair pivoted and Kyvon's eyes nearly bulged out of his head from astonishment. Indeed the voice was female, but raspy because it was electronically synthesized. In fact, the captain's entire body appeared to be electronically synthesized. The perfect blend of hardware and software, she was work of art. A dress of soft white alien fabric unwrinkled at the split as the captain uncrossed her perfectly sculpted legs and prepared to stand. As she rose, the dress, which seemed to lay on her with ease found itself struggling to stay in its place as it selfishly clung to her curvaceous figure. Her stride, as she moved toward Kyvon and commander Shiarr, was not awkward, as he had expected, but almost mesmerizing in the way that only a woman's walk could be to a man. Her hips were hypnotic. She walked with the grace and assertiveness of a model on the catwalk. Her skin, which seemed to hungrily cling to her gray muscle fibers appeared to be of some purplish transparent material that allowed him to see with much amazement each individual muscle involved in her motion. Ooh, and what a motion it was, he thought to himself, for he was for all intents and purposes, speechless.

"Shall I take it then, Mr. Jackson, that you have never seen my kind before?" she asked, flashing a winning smile at him.

"Uh, No Ma'am, uh-Sir!" he stammered in disbelief.

"Very well then. Since it is my experience that your ignorance of my existence and that of others like me can only hinder our mission, I will give you a brief account of who I am and how I (we) came to be... Are you listening, Mr. Jackson?" she asked. Kyvon stared at her with the eyes of a child on Christmas day.

"Kyvon!" she snapped, quickly drawing his eyes from her body to meet hers' which were a misty gray.

"Uh, yes Captain, please forgive me. It is not every day that I see such beauty. Please continue." Kyvon pleaded.

"Alright. I am Captain Ishara Fin. As you can tell, though I am humanoid in form, I am not entirely a human being. In fact, only parts of my brain, approximately 30 percent, are human at all, the rest is complex integration of cerebral netting. It is this particular blend of neurons and receptors that makes my existence possible. I am not of your world. Indeed, not even from this section of your galaxy. But on my planet, Findara, Civilization is not much unlike on Azara Prime. We share similar values, and beliefs. My mission was to come to Azara Prime and select a specimen to-"

"A what?" Kyvon interrupted.

"A representative," she corrected "to act as liaison between our two worlds for we have determined with great certainty that in the very near future, our world will be destroyed. We need to be sure beyond any doubt that our species' are compatible for the continued existence of my people. I am the last of my kind with the ability to reproduce in the manner of our ancestors. This method of sexual reproduction can only be performed with willing human candidates. Recently a gaseous byproduct of one of our major manufacturing processes was linked to sterility of our human population. This gas has since been purged from our atmosphere, but the problem of infertility remains. I remain unaffected due to my long tenure in outer space. Although we can mate with our selves, the process has the degenerative effects of cloning. Our culture will suffer from the lack of diversity necessary for social change and progress evolution. Indeed, our culture, our very existence will die of stagnation. So you see, Mr. Jackson, if this mission fails, the consequences to my species could be catastrophic." Ishara finished.

"But, why me? Why my particular species? We certainly aren't the only humanoid settlement in this quadrant of the galaxy!" Kyvon explained. In fact, he was almost trembling at the prospect of being essentially kidnapped and forced to make alien babies. Then he reconsidered.

"Do all your people look like you?" he asked Ishara.

"If you are referring to physical attraction, No. Unlike those beautiful and handsome enough to get by on looks alone, I had to join the military and work for a living. Although, my personal achievements are nothing to sneer at, there are those of my kind who would consider me less than easy on the eyes." she explained.

Kyvon's whole outlook just got brighter.

"Why have you come so far to get just me? What's so special about me that you would risk inter galactic travel just to pick up a no named nobody like me?" he asked.

"The reasons are many." She said. "But among them are three that made you the one we selected. Besides your intelligence and physical condition," for Kyvon was quite the Scholar's scholar and a tough competitor at any sport, "you have a talent that my people once had, but lost through the deterioration process I spoke of earlier that we would very much like to regain. This talent, this INSIGHT we call it, could give the next generation of Findarans something that was lost during mine."

"What do you mean, INSIGHT?

And then Kyvon experienced an epiphany. He was so curious about the color of her eyes that he didn’t bother to ask himself why they were gray.

“Are you telling me that you are bli.."

"Blind, Mr. Jackson." She finished.

"But you walked like..."

"I can assure you that I am more than a little bit familiar with the location of everything and everywhere on this ship. After all, I designed this craft myself. An additional aid in my day to day is a keen listening ability that surpasses even your own radar technology. Not sight, but it'll do in the meantime." She explained. "You will find this defect common among third generation Findarans, like myself. Commander Shiarr is of the second generation. As such, he has more humanoid pigmentation, and though he lacks my intelligence and youth, he has within him a greater ability to understand and appreciate the human contributions to our heritage. I, on the other hand, am lacking somewhat in this respect. Perhaps, that is of course if you are willing, you can help me in this area also." Ishara finished. Without waiting for a response, she turned and duplicated her seductive walk towards her captain's seat. The view of her from behind, he discovered, was as enjoyable as from the front. He was stunned, confused, elated, and terrified all at once. Overcome by emotion, he did what any warm-blooded male of his species would do in his situation. He fainted.